What is left of Haute Couture in the current financial climate and in the contemporary global society? Some may say nothing or almost nothing, especially after the sad end of Christian Lacroix.
Drastically reduced to just a few days, Paris Haute Couture Week remains an event destined to an audience of professional critics and a wealthy market.
Yet the history of all fashion – be it haute couture or prêt-à-porter – is also the history of our society, of what we are and what we could be and of the political changes and financial developments we witness on a daily basis.
It would therefore be more correct to say that, despite of the obituaries pronounced in its honour, haute couture is not dead, but it has just gone through a major transformation.
In the 70s, many high fashion houses closed down in Italy, others kept on producing designs for the very few members of the upper echelons of society or for pure artistic and aesthetic reasons.
Those designers who understood the new needs of the market and the commercial reality behind the haute couture spectacle, transformed themselves into industries, diversified their work and even moved onto the prêt-à-porter market.
A new revolution is happening in the world of Haute Couture at the moment: designers are presenting equally luxurious but maybe less opulent garments, suspended between high fashion and ready-to-wear, and often aimed at younger generations of wealthy consumers.
This is a new incarnation of the high fashion world and it could be defined as demi-couture or couture-à-porter but, what’s most important, is that it is retaining the main qualities of haute couture, that is myth, quality and craftsmanship.
Does it make people, and women in particular, still dream? It probably only manages to make us dream for a few minutes, the necessary time for a catwalk to take place, since, after all, people’s dreams - our dreams - have changed with the times and, if fifty years ago we dreamt about owning an amazing bejewelled ball gown that could cost as much as a semi-detached house, now we would be happy with just the semi-detached house.
And so reinvented and redefined, haute couture continues to flourish at least for the few women who love perfection and craftsmanship and who can afford them.
Young French designer Alexis Mabille tried to address asymmetries, dichotomies and duplicity in his collection.
However beautiful, no woman is identical both sides, this means that hips, bust and shoulders differ by a few millimetres, one of the main reasons why wealthy women dislike ready-to-wear and prefer having their clothes minutely fitted and made to order.
Maybe that was the metaphysical explanation behind the suits and dresses precisely divided down the middle and sported with a bi-coloured hairstyle and mismatched shoes.
In his graphic suits, dresses and elegantly cut coats, Mabille matched black with vivid pop colours such as fuchsia, bright yellow and red, nuances that in some cases gave an almost cartoonish (or rather “Two Face out of Batman”), arty (read Alexander Calder, but also early 20th century Russian art) and at times pop look.
His signature bows were turned into sashes and wrapped around a skirt or a pair of trousers or used to decorate the neckline of a little black dress, while mini bows in a fading colour scale that went from black to light grey were sewn one after the other onto a mini-skirt creating from a distance an interesting rippled fabric effect.
See through panels were used in other looks to create further contrasts, while the (at times redundant) evening wear was more classic and neatly sophisticated, with long skirts and capes, climaxing into a wedding dress that evoked the rocket-shape silhouettes so popular in the 60s.
Anne Valérie Hash came up with an interesting concept: rummaging through her more or less famous friends’ wardrobes, stealing some clothes and updating and reinventing them.
It may sound rather bizarre, especially in the context of a high fashion week, but this "recycling and re-branding" trend that is currently becoming rather popular and spreading fast is quickly finding enthusiastic supporters among designers and fashionistas alike.
The idea is not new: refusing to conform to the relentless rhythms of fashion Italian designer Walter Albini did a menswear “non collection” in 1977, exhibiting carefully styled outfits assembled with clothes and accessories taken from the personal collections of fashion designer friends and from the wardrobes of photographers and journalists.
The main problem with such experiments is that they imply a little group of wealthy, famous and stylish friends, but Hash seems to have quite a few, all of them willing to give her a hand.
Hash added to each piece a little bit of haute couture exclusivity by transforming Lanvin’s Alber Elbaz’s pyjama jacket in a jumpsuit, incorporating an iconic striped sweater by Jean Paul Gaultier into a one-shouldered evening dress, integrating Tilda Swinton’s T-shirt into a jacket, disassembling Pete Doherty’s drummer boy jacket and giving it a new life in the shape of a shirt and jacket.
Though interesting and at times surreal (see the ballerina pointe shoe given the Schiaparelli treatment and turned into a glove - warning: don’t try it at home…), Hash’s “exercise into remaking” is destined to remain into the arty and experimental realm since these pieces, used to tackle the theme of memory and identity, will not be sold, though they are a good example of how couture may be transforming in a not so distant future.
The world of fashion is a world run in many cases by hysteria, disloyalties, quarrels and hate and, returning to haute couture, Josephus Thimister seemed to state that, if is a bloody battle to fight on the runways, he is ready to take part in it.
The Antwerp Fashion School graduate who worked as creative director for Balenciaga and assistant for Karl Lagerfeld sent out on the catwalk models in garments that looked as if they had been freshly stained with blood.
Immaculate tank tops, shirts, jodhpurs and voluminous knits smeared with blood stains were the highlights of the show together with military coats lined in ruby red fur.
Then, little by little, the rawness of the show subsumed: the ruby red colour was applied to sequinned hooded dresses, the military green to long skirts, the military sashes turned into decorative belts and the war injuries were hidden away under luxurious white coats and silvery evening gowns.
Perfectly incarnating the main themes of his collection “Bloodshed and Opulence”, inspired by an image of Russian Emperor Nicholas II's murdered 13-year-old son, Thimister made just one mistake in a collection that in a way also tackled two themes so popular in the world of fashion, producing too many looks and falling into a few repetitions.
Still Thimister coming back onto the haute couture scene (and presenting not his Spring/Summer but the Autumn 2010 collection and including both men and women's looks) and doing it in such a "murderous" way, proves there is space for a new kind of high fashion, maybe less extravagant and slightly more contemporary.
Equestrian drama was all the rage at Dior’s headquarters on the Avenue Montaigne where models in exaggerated hairstyles à la Bride of Frankenstein, walked around wearing tailored jackets that were crossovers between the "Bar" suit jacket and a peplum jacket and saddle skirts accessorised with veiled top-hats and long riding crops.
The equestrian inspiration was just one side of the coin though and soon frothy cocktail dresses (probably the weakest part of the show) and ball gowns overloaded with yards and yards of precious and luxurious fabrics arrived.
The hairstyles and oversized Stephen Jones' hats evoked “Gibson Girl” memories and the ideals of beauty incarnated by Camille Clifford, while the ball gowns with their hand embroidered motifs, lace elements and layers of tulle evoked the designs by Charles James who originally inspired Dior’s "New Look".
No more lingerie looks then, but a return to the fashion house heritage, with a voluminously glamorous gown featuring a bustier and a petalled skirt dusted with crystals that called back to mind Dior’s “Junon” dress, worn by model Ann Theophane Graham in a picture taken by Richard Avedon in 1949.
Studying Dior’s haute couture collections is almost easy to understand what couture is about: perfect colour combinations that include chocolate browns, delicate peaches, dark plums, suave pinks and faded blues; bodices with sculptural details created by sumptuous fabrics that seem to obey Galliano’s designs; numerous construction techniques that allow to literally build fancy gowns and cascades of jewels, crystals and beads employed to create three-dimensional structures.
One interesting trend spotted in this show were the oversized jewels and cameos (that could be probably reproduced at almost no cost by using parts of vintage or broken chandeliers found in markets…) and a stiletto version of the more classic button up boot that looked almost wearable for Galliano’s standards.
Despite the profusion of sumptuous designs, Galliano seems to have forgotten about his more arty inspirations in the latest catwalk shows for Dior focusing on a wide and rich archive, and also favouring less theatrical presentations.
Giorgio Armani may have arrived a year later when it came to paying tributes to the moon, but, despite a few sci-fi looks, his collection wasn’t about space fashion.
Armani Privé's collection focused indeed on the more romantic aspects of the moon, so iridescent and luminescent fabrics reproduced a glowing lunar pallor, while black evoked the mysterious shadows of an eclipse, though the most interesting designs were the ones in which the different moon phases were reproduced through interesting tailoring techniques.
From crescent through waxing gibbous to full moon, the lunar phases seemed to be reproduced in the asymmetric cut of the fabric, in a hemline or in the motifs recreated around the hip area of a pair of elegant trousers, in the semicircle-shaped peplums of the jackets, the mother of pearl pins or an oversized disc of organza over-imposed to a dress.
The lunar motif was also applied to fabrics that, in some cases, reproduced thanks to special treatments or to sparkling crystals the rough and mountainous surface of the moon (and were perfectly matched with ostrich skin bags that seemed to indirectly call to mind the moon craters).
The main inspiration for the collection wasn't maybe extremely original, but it was successfully carried out and among the perfectly cut outfits there were quite a few ones that we will definitely see very soon on many celebrities at red carpet events.
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